Does this sculpture make you immediately think of MLK? Me neither.

What's odd is that there is some good figure work here, and if the whole thing was two actual torsos sticking out of the ground hugging, it would be a lot better than this half-realist, half-abstract, vague nonsense.

Part of the problem here is that the artists -- and the people who commissioned this -- don't seem to have had a clear understanding of what this kind of art actually needs to do.

If you're looking to create a sculpture that shows a heroic figure (ie. MLK), then one would think the goal would be to create something that inspires people to emulate that figure in some way.

In this case, let's say the theme is "compassion" with a mixture of warmth and love -- thus a "hug".

Great.

So why make something that 1) can't be identified as a hug or really read as anything clear at all from most viewing angles; and 2) which doesn't seem to have any obvious connection to Martin Luther King, Jr.?

It does an absolutely horrible job of conveying meaning that can be shared by most anyone who happens to walk by, which makes it uniquely bad as public art and particularly bad as something that's supposed to reflect the heroism of its namesake.

But hey, the government spent lots and lots of taxpayer dollars on it, so... yay!